Cruz: Phil Gramm Changed Debate When He Said HillaryCare Would Pass over Cold, Dead Body

On Meet the Press on Sunday, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said the senator he most admires is former Sen. Phil Gramm (R-TX) because of his fierce opposition to what he referred to as “HillaryCare” in 1993.

Cruz said that when HillaryCare–the sweeping healthcare law President Bill Clinton tried to enact during his first year in office–was being debated, many Republicans wanted a lighter version of it when Gramm declared, “This will pass over my cold, dead political body.”

Cruz said “a whole lot of Republicans were scared” before, but they “they looked over” and saw that Gramm “was not killed.”

“They ran behind him and said, ‘yeah, what he said,'” Cruz said.

Cruz mentioned that the “power of leadership changes debates” and that the country saw that with Syria, when despite leaders in Congress on both sides supporting intervention, the American people “spoke up overwhelmingly in opposition” and forced Congress and President Barack Obama to change course.